“What do you mean ‘started’?”
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I want to clarify that I’m talking about open mass-killings in the vein of Sharpeville or Bloody Sunday.
Reading and seeing the public’s reactions to things like the gassings and beatings at pro-Palestine encampments, BLM protestors getting run over, Kyle Rittenhouse’s victims, etc. it seems like the American people take an open and ghoulish delight in protestors getting brutalized, maimed, and killed. Go to any video or article about these things happening, and the comments section is an endless parade of the worst people imaginable cheering and hollering for it with extremely little or no pushback. It’s depressingly consistent.
It just gives me this horrible feeling that one day the police are going to unload into a crowd of protestors and leave a mass of bodies in their wake, the American people will hoot and clap and cheer about how the victims got what they deserved, and that’ll become the new MO. The only reason they aren’t already doing this is fear it might make them look bad, and if it doesn’t end up making them look bad in the eyes of the public, then there isn’t a single thing stopping them.
There is no “American people”. Fascists will hoot and clap. Many people - I would argue many more - will feel that the promise of the country has been irrevocably broken and will radicalize. It will be up to those already radicalized to be prepared and trained enough to move those people into permanent political action.
True
The problem in the USA is twofold
The first is that individualism runs deep and the “Fuck you, I got mine” mentality is hard to break
However, once it becomes blatantly apparent that they’re at risk, this will be less of an issue. But then the second problem arises
They don’t have a framework for meaningful action, much less the capability of developing the sort of military mindset of tactics and logistics that a violent revolution would require
It’s that aspect that gives me the most pause, because
Don't siege Leningrad, take it right awaymay be a more pervasive mindset than we realizeThe first is that individualism runs deep and the “Fuck you, I got mine” mentality is hard to break
There’s another mentality as or more troubling to me and that’s the hold of the myth of American civil religion.
Their inclination will not be that they need revolutionary communism, that they need to seize the means and read Lenin and Mao, it will be a strong desire to RETURN to what was. To attempt to get back this mythic liberal Democracy they believe their country had for two centuries and many will cling to that as their real religion, as what they grew up being indoctrinated in in school, as the association with patriotic songs that have brought tears to their eyes, etc. They are invested deeply in not just the capitalist project or the settler one but in the myth, in being fooled, in believing that this is PEAK of societal development and that we just have to bring it back. I expect many of them will get sucked into pointless actions trying to do just that and some will take up arms against both the communists and the reactionaries and seek to put both down but likely prioritize the communists as the more dangerous I’m sad to say.
Americans are the most indoctrinated people on earth. It isn’t merely class interests, it won’t vanish the day those interests change, I fear it will take years, even possibly decades for the old true-believer to die or age out and for a disillusioned younger generation who never experienced the good parts of the myth and doesn’t believe in it at all to come along and be swept up in communism and act on it. It’s possible we might build something without them, that they’ll just sit on the sidelines and not fight us, staring at the broken pieces in their hands instead but its a real problem. I think we will find the most fertile ground among the ‘apolitical’, those sitting it out because they feel and know on some level it’s bullshit and things could take off like fire among this part of the population, it’s a wildcard.
From my own personal experiences, a lot of people who were born after 1980 or so have no real love for the USA
They were indoctrinated, but it just didn’t take (being forced to say the pledge of allegiance in school everyday basically just fostered resentment)
But because of that, they basically don’t have any real ideology aside from
Everything's bad! This sucks, but what are you gonna do?I try my best to be optimistic and tell them that better things are possible and they believe it, but it’s hard to break them out of the doomer spiral
because
Don't siege Leningrad, take it right awaymay be a more pervasive mindset than we realizeWhat does this mean?
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Mhhm
I’ve been boning up on military strategy and I can assure you, I don’t believe many other people have any idea of what it’s going to take to win this thing
There was a greentext a while back from some 4chan shithead that was convinced that they knew how to win WW2 as Germany, and that was one of their brilliant armchair observations: “Don’t spend a bunch of time and resources getting bogged down sieging a major city, simply take it without a siege”
I’m assuming in this case they meant that a bunch of freshly radicalized burgerreichers will simply point at their foreheads and go “seize the means of production, simple!” and get gunned down by feds because it didn’t occur to them that there might be some pushback to such an event.
Ayup
kent state was popular at the time
Smeared the students as pinkos and the hogs clapped
I mean, a significant amount of conservatives supported the Kent State shootings, things have only gotten worse and more divided since that.
A Gallup poll the following week revealed nearly 60 percent placed total blame on the students, while only 10 percent blamed the guardsmen (30 percent had no opinion) [reactionary source]. [Howard] Means cites multiple uses of the phrase “They should have shot more of them [students]” and similar sentiments.
A lot of this is that Americans were and are bloodthirsty psychos, but the media also spread a bunch of lies, for example claiming that the students had been lacing the water supply with LSD.
Also half the students who were shot at Kent State werent even protestors. Literally just bystanders.
10 years after that happens, EVERYONE will be against it.
10years later, everyone will always have been against it definitely do not check their post history from a week after
Enough Germans and Italians let it happen, even if they thought they were against it, and that was in a time and places where militant communist organizing and general leftist sentiment hadn’t been generationally purged from worker’s consciousness.
I don’t think they’ll cheer on police, but I can see them being smug dipshits about it
“Don’t they know protests do nothing, I am so smart” - says the person that never leaves their home or does anything against the status quo
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It depends on a lot of factors, many of them
Full disclosure: I used to think, probably naively, that there was this massive group of americans who don’t vote who could potentially be allies but as time has gone on I really don’t have hope for the people of the usa anymore. Correct me if I’m wrong or being doomer.
People go along with what they’re convinced of. I often think back to first few months of covid and how the vast majority of folks were on board with masking, lockdowns, and waiting for a proper vaccine. And that was primarily because there was a reasonably consistent message (Flatten the Curve!) from our two big authority figures; The news media and the government. And then there was a lot of money and two/three years spent undermining that message to bring us to the point where even most left leaning folks can’t be bothered to put up the barest of resistance against eugenics and social murder.
We are in a Class War, that we’ve been convinced not to fight. Eventually leftists will realize they need to wage a mental battle as much as a physical one. Hopefully, before it’s too late.
Imo, there are a large number of people in America who may not exactly be allies, but don’t vote because who is in office hasn’t tangibly changed their living conditions in 50 years. I think promising the right things and delivering on them would win their life long support.
Most people in any society are fundamentally apolitical and don’t really give a shit about the holders or application of power so long as they’re relatively comfortable. Seizing power is and has always been a process of building a core group of ideologically committed revolutionaries, overthrowing the existing power structures, beating out competitors to filling that power vacuum, and then providing well enough for everyone else that nobody turns around and does the same to you.
If US comrades manage to build the infrastructure and framework of revolution and connect with enough of the average populace, they will win. This is as true in the US now as it was in Russia in 1917 or vast swaths of southeast Asia in the 40s/50s.
Remember that Trump didn’t win as hard as the Republicans like to think they did. Once all the counting was done, he only won like 1% more of the popular vote, and it wasn’t even a majority of the population. "Didn’t vote* would still win if it was a candidate.
Most of the people who didn’t vote for Trump voted for Kamala, who also supports Israel. Genocide has such broad appeal in America that you can’t run a viable party unless you support it.
The genocide is actually pretty unpopular though. Just not unpopular enough to matter in our wonderful democracy.
I think we need to be precise about topics where we’re in the minority vs topics where people agree with us but we just have no representation. Very different political implications & organizing tasks.
Capital controls the party duopoly and does not allow alternative parties. That neither party allows dissent or opposition to Israel and its genocide of Palestinians is not at all indicative of broad support for that genocide or of Israel among the population. It’s indicative of the fact that the Capitalist class is motivated solely by profit and does not even remotely consider public opinion in its political actions.
Support and attitudes among DC politicians and the porkies that pull their strings do not reflect the opinions of the American populace.
I mean, the answer is kind of in your post. 2020 BLM was the largest set of protests in the history of the country. There would be massive amounts of pushback from everyday people.
2020 BLM was the largest set of protests in the history of the country.
Is this true? I feel like it isn’t but purely based on vibes.
Cops have been videotaped ripping people from their wheelchairs and ripping of prosthetic legs.
Also I’m shocked the cops and groypers didn’t actually kill any of the encampment students last summer. They were brutal enough that it seemed expected.
So yeah, open fire wouldn’t bat a lot of eyes.
Hard to say but I lean towards no. I think about the civil rights marches of the 50s and 60s, where everyday Americans (who were racist as hell, c’mon) watched police brutalize little Black church ladies crossing a bridge, setting fire hoses and attack dogs loose on Black WW2 veterans. In liberal circles, they say that this “voluntary victimization” of the nonviolent movement kept them sympathetic in the eyes of the population.
Kent State is actually a great counter argument because it has a lot of differences, and how it was viewed by the public reflects how American perception of protest changed from the 50s to the 70s. By the time Kent State occurred, so much had changed (Kennedy, Vietnam, civil rights) and the American public was experiencing what I’ll call “protest fatigue status quoism.” White hippie college students throwing rocks at national guard troops to protest a war was nowhere near as sympathetic as Black church goers getting their skulls split by cops so they could vote.
What also comes to mind is the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968 in Mexico, though I don’t know much about the public perception of that event.
In conclusion, if it’s “wall of moms” getting blasted by cops, people will care. If it’s antifa, they won’t.
Mexico swept that massacre under the rug very quickly. Thousands of people killed or missing after that massacre and the town square was swept clean in two weeks in time for the games
I think that shit already happened with the National Guard shootings at Kent State and Jackson State, didn’t it? A lot of people approved of those actions, maybe even the majority if I recall correctly.
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/6085176
To add to this: after the Kent State shooting, 58% of those who were polled placed the blame on the students, 11% blamed the national guard, and 31%
just wanted to grillexpressed no opinion.There was a poll done 50 years after the shooting, 16% blamed the students, 29% blamed the national guard, 27% expressing no opinion, and the rest blaming Nixon or governor Rhodes.
Regardless of whether I believe it what I can tell you is that the powers that be have done everything they could to grease the skids toward people adopting a hostile view of protestors and a reverence for law enforcement.
And they don’t do that shit for free. Somebody somewhere is banking on the idea that these are good investments against social unrest and disorder. To the tune of countless millions.
So I guess the question is how successful it will be. Because I can certainly predict the narrative working on some people even when it gets stress tested by open state murder against peaceful assembly.
Regardless of whether I believe it what I can tell you is that the powers that be have done everything they could to grease the skids toward people adopting a hostile view of protestors and a reverence for law enforcement.
Oh god yeah, even when I was a kid, the media I saw that portrayed protestors almost always depicted them as stupid annoying hippies who had no real problems.
The order of operations is:
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These naive hippie dipshits are so misguided protesting things.
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Gosh. If they really wanted to change the system they’d join it and change it from within. You? Me? The hippie protestors? All doing nothing. (Moderate vote shaming begins)
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In a way, their impotent protests just proves the protestors do it for themselves, not the issues. (Vote shaming intensifies)
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Actually, them protesting is worse than doing nothing. In a way, they’re worse than I am on the issues! (Vote shaming reaches apogee)
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Hypocrisy! Socialism iPhone! They haven’t donated 100% of their time and income yet claim to care!
It’s funny how in a bunch of movies I grew up with there was some variation of the pitiable/loathsome “protestors” usually with a white California accent, gumming up the works, offering helpless advice, existing for the audience to scorn or ridicule until Manly Leading White Man or Girl Who Uses Cusswords snaps them out of their hippie reverie. Or they get owned. Like the stripper in Independence Day that goes up the tower to dance with the aluminum foil motley of cranks waving signs at the starship.
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No, things are turning. Not long ago it was unthinkable that Israel would ever lose any popular support.
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